Old You Vs New You: Who Wins ?
When it comes to transforming our lives, we need to constantly engage an interesting battle in our minds- New You vs Old You.
The battle line is drawn from the very moment you finished writing down those your goals. Yes, after you’ve written down your affirmations or created your vision boards.
Whether you know it or not, you’ve declared war on Old You. You’ve started on the path towards the New You.
On this new path, if you must successfully reach the other side of New You, you have to be fully aware of what is going on.
The more aware you are of what you’re doing, the more proactive you’ll be in taking actions that will keep you on the path to your goals.
You can’t afford to be ignorant or neutral in this war.
There will always be resistance to change. It’s completely normal and natural. Know this and you’ve won half of the battle already.
Old You is surely very smart and knows how to come up with easy-to-believe excuses why you don’t need to become New You. Old You will come up with all sorts of mysterious tricks, irresistible temptations, devious mind games, amplified inner voices to keep you right in the already established routines.
If you fight it too hard, Old You can use past memories, dreams, nightmares, or even hallucinations to try to contain you in your current comfort zones.
Old You is highly systematic and has a well-equipped toolbox ( your mind ) to do that work successfully if you will allow it.
Now before you go on to antagonize and blame Old You, remember that Old You is still You and you were built that way from the time your were born and does all of the above things to protect you.
It is your inbuilt wiring for preservation and efficiency. It does this through what we know as habits. Once the habits are formed, it locks them down and stays alert like a sentry to make sure nothing comes along to disturb the peace and comfort within.
The smart thing to do is to find ways to make it easier to win Old You.
Here are some ways I know:
Find a real, emotionally-loaded WHY(s) : Think about the reasons you want this change to happen. It has to resonate deep within you. It will keep you going even when circumstances around you and Old You is busy choking you so hard.
For example, you may be getting your feet wet with learning a course or getting a new job. Your WHY could be that you want to make more money so you could take great care of your new baby. It may be that you want to move out of your parents home and become a more responsible, independent adult.
If there is no strong WHY(s), Old You will drag you back at the first sign of failure or resistance.
Make a detailed, specific action plan. Note the things you will do regularly to move you forward in your journey to New You. If you are a writer, you will need to find a schedule that you MUST commit to because of your WHY(s) above.
You can make this much easier by a technique called temptation bundling or stacking.
Here is how it works; say you have chosen to commit to write at 9am every day, you connect it to another habit you already have. You can decide to write your articles right after taking your hot morning coffee at the dining table. This makes it easier to remember and do the writing.
Surround yourself with a supportive environment: Your physical surroundings should be tweaked to help your journey.
You can’t say you’re writing when your favorite movie is playing out loud on your laptop or TV. You can’t be writing with poor lighting or low battery power or a bad chair. Your productivity won’t be top notch if you’re very hungry or if you’re too full with food.
Put in effort to make your environment work for you not against you.
Don’t sweat it if you make mistakes or miss your schedule: No matter how well designed your new habits or action plan, accept that at some points on your journey to New You, you might stumble and fall.
It’s fine. It’s normal. It’s human.
You’re not a robot. Heck, even robots fail.
So relax, laugh and learn from your mistakes as you rise and continue on your journey. It is your cumulative effort that will count to your success not just a single event.
You know your New You and the things you must do to realise it. You are now aware that Old You will always fight back to keep you in the current comfort zone. You now have the knowledge on what to do to win every time.
It’s now up to you to choose who wins.
Will you stay with Old You or Will you set yourself up to meet New You on the other side ?
You know your answer.
Thank you for reading. Don’t forget to clap and share this post with someone who is on their journey to their New You.
